The Pole and Other Stories, page 14
‘Therefore?’
‘Therefore I think about this man Martin Heidegger who wants to be proud of being a man, ein Mensch, who tells us how he creates a world about him, weltbildend, how we can be like him, weltbildend too, but who actually is not sure, through and through, that he wants to be ein Mensch, who has moments when he wonders whether, in the larger perspective, it might not be better to be a dog or a flea and surrender yourself to the torrent of being.’
‘The torrent of being. You have left me behind. What is that? Explain.’
‘The torrent. The flood. Heidegger has intimations of what that experience would be like, the experience of the torrent of being, but he resists them. Instead he calls it an impoverished experience of being. He calls it impoverished because it is unvaried. What a joke! He sits at his desk and writes and writes. Das Tier benimmt sich in einer Umgebung, aber nie in einer Welt: the animal acts (or behaves) within an environment but never within a world. He lifts his pen. There is a knock at the door. It is the knock he has been listening for all the while he has been writing, his senses alert to it. Hannah! The beloved! He tosses the pen aside. She has come! His desire is here!’
‘And?’
‘That is all. I haven’t been able to take it any further. All the stuff I sent you is like that. I can’t take it to the next step. Something is lacking in me. I used to be able to take things to the next step, but I no longer seem to have it in me, that ability. The cogs are seizing up, the lights are going out. The mechanism that I used to rely on to take me to the next step no longer seems to work. Don’t be alarmed. It is nature—nature’s way of telling me it is time to come home.
‘That’s another experience Martin Heidegger wasn’t prepared to reflect on: the experience of being dead, of not being present in the world. It’s an experience all of its own. I could tell him about it if he were here—at least about its early manifestations.’
FOUR
A day later he leafs through his mother’s journal again, settles on the last entry, dated July 1, 1995.
‘Yesterday I went to a lecture by a man named Gary Steiner. He spoke about Descartes and the continuing influence of Descartes on our way of thinking about animals, even the more enlightened among us. (Descartes, one recalls, said that human beings have rational souls while animals do not. From which it followed that while animals are capable of feeling pain they are incapable of suffering. According to Descartes, pain is an unpleasant physical sensation which triggers an automatic response, a cry or a howl; whereas suffering is a different matter, on a higher plane, the plane of the human.)
‘I found the lecture interesting. But then Professor Steiner started to go into detail about Descartes’ anatomical experiments, and suddenly I could bear it no longer. He described an experiment that Descartes carried out on a live rabbit, which I presume was strapped down to a board or nailed to it so that it could not move. Descartes opened the rabbit’s chest with a scalpel, snipping off the ribs one by one and removing them to expose the beating heart. Then he made a little incision in the heart itself, and for a second or two, before the heart stopped beating, was able to observe the system of valves by means of which the blood is pumped.
‘I listened to Professor Steiner and then I stopped listening. My mind went elsewhere. I wanted urgently to fall to my knees; but we were in a lecture theatre with the seats very close to each other so that there was no space to kneel. “Excuse me, excuse me,” I said to my neighbours, and worked my way out of the auditorium. In the foyer, which was empty, I was at last able to kneel and ask for pardon, on my own behalf, on Mr Steiner’s behalf, on René Descartes’ behalf, on behalf of all our murderous gang. There was a song hammering in my ears, an old prophecy:
A dog starved at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry from the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear…
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men…
Kill not the moth nor butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
‘The Last Judgment! What mercy will Descartes’ rabbit, martyred in the cause of science three hundred and seventy-eight years ago this year, and in God’s hands since that day with his torn-open breast, show toward us? What mercy do we deserve?’
He, John, the son of the woman who fell on her knees in July of 1995 and asked for forgiveness, and then afterwards wrote the words he has just read, takes out his pen. At the foot of the page he writes: ‘A fact about rabbits, attested by science. When the fox’s jaws close on the rabbit’s neck it, goes into a state of shock. Nature has so arranged it, or God, if you prefer to speak of God, has so arranged it, that the fox can tear open the rabbit’s belly and feed on his innards and the rabbit will feel nothing, nothing at all. No pain, no suffering.’ He underlines the words A fact about rabbits.
His mother has given no indication that she wants her journal back. But destiny is inscrutable. Maybe he will be the earlier of the two to die, struck down as he crosses the street. Then she, for a change, will have to read his thoughts.
FIVE
HE has come to the end of his reading. It is one in the morning here, six in the morning there. His mother is very likely still asleep. Nevertheless, he picks up the telephone.
He has a prepared speech. ‘Thank you for sending the packet of documents, Mother. I have read through most of them, and I believe I see what you would like me to do. You would like me to hammer these miscellaneous pieces of writing into shape, make them fit together in some way. But you know as well as I do that I have no gift for that kind of thing. So tell me, what is this really all about? Is there something you are afraid to tell me? I know it is early in the morning, I apologize for that, but please be open with me. Is something wrong?’
There is a long silence. When at last his mother speaks, her voice is perfectly clear, perfectly lucid.
‘Very well, I will tell you. I am not myself, John. Something is happening to me, to my mind. I forget things. I cannot concentrate. I have seen my doctor. He wants me to go in to the city for tests. I have made an appointment with a neurologist. But in the meantime I am trying to put my life in order, just in case.
‘I can’t begin to describe the mess on my desk. What I sent you is only a fraction of it. If something happens to me the cleaning-woman will throw it all in the trash. Which is perhaps what it deserves. But in my vain human way I persist in thinking that something of value can be made of it. Does that answer your question?’
‘What do you think is wrong with you?’
‘I don’t know for sure. As I said, I forget things. I forget myself. I find myself in the street and I don’t know why I am there or how I got there. Sometimes I even forget who I am. An eerie experience. I feel I am losing my mind. Which is only to be expected. The brain, being matter, deteriorates, and since the mind is not unconnected with the brain, the mind deteriorates too. That is how things are with me, in summary. I can’t work, can’t think in a larger way. If you decide you can’t do anything with the papers, never mind, just put them somewhere safe.
‘But while I have you, let me tell you what happened last night.
‘There was a program on television about factory farming. Normally I don’t watch such things, but this time for some reason I didn’t switch off.
‘The program featured an industrial hatchery for chickens—a place where they fertilize eggs en masse, hatch them artificially, and sex the chicks.
‘The routine goes as follows. On the second day of their life, when they are capable of standing on their own two feet, the chicks are fed onto a conveyor belt, which moves them slowly past workers whose job it is to examine their sex organs. If you turn out to be female, you are transferred to a box for dispatch to the egg-laying plant, where you will spend your productive life as a layer. If you are male you stay on the conveyor belt. At the end of the conveyor belt you are tipped down a chute. At the bottom of the chute are a pair of toothed wheels that grind you into a paste, which is then chemically sterilized and turned into cattle-feed or fertilizer.
‘The camera, last night, followed one particular little chick in his progress along the conveyor belt. So this is life! you could see him saying to himself. Confusing, but not too challenging thus far. A pair of hands lifted him, parted the fluff between his thighs, replaced him on the belt. Lots of tests! he said to himself. I seem to have passed that one. The belt rolled on. Bravely he rode it, confronting the future and all that the future contained.
‘I can’t put the image out of my mind, John. All those billions of chicks who are born into this beautiful world and are by our grace allowed to live for one day before being ground to a paste because they are the wrong sex, because they don’t fit the business plan.
‘For the most part, I don’t know what I believe any longer. What beliefs I used to have seem to have been overtaken by the fog and confusion in my head. Nevertheless, I cling to one last belief: that the little chick who appeared to me on the screen last night appeared for a reason, he and the other negligible beings whose paths have crossed mine on the way to their respective deaths.
‘It is for them that I write. Their lives were so brief, so easily forgotten. I am the sole being in the universe who still remembers them, if we leave God aside. After I am gone there will be only blankness. It will be as if they had never existed. That is why I wrote about them, and why I wanted you to read about them. To pass on the memory of them, to you. That is all.’
2016–2017
THERE is a message on the answering machine, from his mother: ‘Please telephone. It is about the final disposition.’
The final disposition: he is tired of the phrase. Not a month passes without the final disposition being raised—the final disposition of his mother’s body, the final disposition of her worldly goods. He lives in Baltimore, MD. She lives in a village in Catalonia, six thousand kilometres away, in retreat from the world. What does he need to hear about the final disposition that he has not heard before?
He telephones. ‘What news, Mother? How is your health?’
Her health is failing, it turns out: that is what this call is all about. ‘I saw a specialist yesterday. I had to hire a car and driver to take me. The bus service has been cut, like everything else nowadays. The man says I have to prepare for the worst. He says I can no longer live alone.’
‘Prepare for the worst. What is that a euphemism for—“the worst”?’
His mother ignores the question. ‘I have instructed my agent that all communications henceforth should go to you. You will be the one making decisions, decisions about rights and royalties and so forth. After a while the decisions will begin to taper off, as I am forgotten. Then you will be free again.’
His mother is or was a writer. She stopped writing, as far as he knows, when she moved to the village five years ago. Already the world is in the process of forgetting her. Does she know that? The burden she is laying on his shoulders will not be heavy.
‘What is it that you fear, Mother? What exactly did the specialist say?’
‘He used the word dementia. I am showing signs of dementia. People around me see it. Sometimes even I see it. He says I cannot go on living alone. I need someone to be with me, to take care of me. At the very least.’
‘At the very least?’
‘He did not use the word institution, but it hung in the air between us. I might have to move, I might have to be moved, to an institution. I cannot face that, John. I am going to put an end to it. That is why I called.’
‘Surely that is a long way off, a long way down the road—institutional care. And it won’t be necessary anyway. You can come and live with us.’
‘Thank you. I know you mean it. But it will not work. I am not going to inflict myself on you and Norma. A crazy old hag shuffling around the house. No, we need to settle the disposition of my things while I am still rational. Then I will be free to end it all.’
End it all. He does not know what to say. Because behind all this talk of final dispositions he hears something else, a plea: Save me! Save me, my son! A plea hidden in a cloud of obfuscation so that the fiction may be preserved that the two of them are rational beings discussing plans for the future.
His mother a rational being! What nonsense! Since before he was born his mother has been acting out one or other inner drama on the page. Every word she writes is the trace of something going on inside her. This very telephone call belongs to one of those dramas, the one called The Death of Elizabeth Costello.
‘I am coming to see you, Mother. I can’t come at once. I have duties at the university. But I will catch a flight on Friday. Will that be soon enough?’
He arrives in Barcelona at dawn after a sleepless night on the plane. He hires a car, drives the two hours into the mountains to the village of San Juan, knocks at his mother’s door. She opens the door herself. He is shocked by what he beholds. When he last saw her she was strong and erect, a woman of iron. Now he can only call her crumpled. Her cheeks have sunk in, her skin has a waxy colour; embracing her, he picks up odours of unwashed clothes, of old age.
‘How are you, Mother?’
‘On my last legs, as you can see. Have you had breakfast? Would you like some tea? The woman who does the cleaning will be here in a minute. Shall we sit down?’
He eases her into a chair. The house is a mess. Whoever does the cleaning does not take her job seriously.
‘Tell me the story, the full story. You spoke of dementia but I see no sign of it.’
‘Stay around and you will soon see the signs. I forget names. I forget words. I forget where I am. A while ago they found me out in the country, on a farm road, in my nightdress. I had no idea how I got there. I spent three days in hospital, undergoing tests, the full battery. Early dementia, they decided to call it: dementia temprana.’
‘And there is no hope? No hope of a reversal? They say that playing an instrument is good for dementia. Or playing chess.’
‘Of course there is hope. There is always hope. We live in hope. How else can we live? But hope is like grace. You can’t bank on it. If you bank on it, it will not come. Like the angels. Like relying on an angel to stand over you, guarding you from evil. Out of the question. That is the law. That is how it works, this universe of ours. No angels. No interventions. Otherwise life would be too easy. So: yes, there is hope. But not for me. Kafka’s words. One of his sayings. His paradoxes. He produced it as a joke, that was his manner, like a conjurer. A hat out of a rabbit. But it is true nonetheless, true for him and for you and for me. True for all of us. There is hope, only not for us. If salvation comes, it will come as a surprise. An overwhelming surprise.’
‘Kafka. You remember his name. You remember his sayings. You make sense when you talk. This is not the behaviour of a demented person.’
‘Early dementia. When the real thing comes I will forget everything, inexorably. All the names, then all the words, one by one. That is why I called. I need to show you where I keep things. After that I thought I would offer you a choice. Either you go back to your university in America, and your students and your duties, and I do the business myself; or you stay here in Catalonia while I do the business. I prefer the second. It is more practical, more efficient. You will not have to make a second trip. But it may be too much for you. I will understand.’
Do the business. He cannot believe what he is hearing. ‘What do you mean, Mother, do the business?’
‘You know what I mean, John. The words are crude, but that is because the business is crude. Do away with myself. Kill myself. Put an end to this life that has gone on too long. I have the means, the necessary. I have the pills. I am not afraid.’
She says she is not afraid, but he does not believe her. No one is not afraid.
‘Would it help if I contacted your doctor, Mother? Does he speak English? I would like to know what exactly he meant by no hope. In my experience, doctors never say no hope. They always offer some ray of light, some cautious, professional ray of light.’
‘No. This is not the kind of case in which there is a ray of hope.’
The front door opens: the woman who looks after things. She peers into the living room, gives him a silent nod, then disappears into the kitchen.
‘You offer me a choice, Mother, but it is not a real choice, and you know that. I can’t leave you, knowing what you are going to do. I am going to stay with you. There is no question about that. But there is something I want you to acknowledge: that you called me here, that you want me by your side because you can’t do it alone—do the business, as you call it. You want me to hold your hand. More than that. You want me to say, Don’t do it. You want me to say, There is always hope.
‘I want to tell you a story, Mother, a story about hope. We had a dog, a spaniel named Demeter. You never met her, but maybe the children talked to you about her—they were very fond of her.
